The Seshat: Global History Databank is a large, international not-for-profit team of researchers. We rely on professional scholars, policy-makers, and researchers as well as volunteers who have in interest in using evolutionary theory and historical evidence to solve some of the most pressing problems facing the world today.

Get Involved

The Seshat: Global History Databank is a large, international not-for-profit team of researchers. We rely on professional scholars and policy-makers to solve some of the most pressing problems facing the world today:

What has caused states across the globe and throughout human history to rise and fall?

What makes huge groups of unrelated people in large, diverse societies cooperate for the common good?

Why is there so much variation in political stability, economic performance, and people’s overall well-being in countries today?

With your help, the Seshat: Global History Databank can help resolve these questions by exploring in a systematic, holistic, scientific fashion how these have played out in different human societies throughout history. (See our Methods page for more details on how we intend to achieve this).

Professors, scholars, and PhDs with an expertise in a region within our World Sample 30 to advise our research assistants and review datasheets. We appreciate any time you are willing to give to our project, ranging from providing five quick answers to our researcher’s questions to reviewing a section of an informational sheet.

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Data from the Seshat Databank (data.seshat.info) is under Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial (CC By-NC SA) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/legalcode) licensing. Do you agree to the reasonable and appropriate use of these data?